Happy Xmas (VAR isn't over)

A Christmas Gift for you from Andrew Beasley Football: here's a round up of the best articles of 2024, with paywalls removed.

Hello, friends, and thanks for supporting my newsletter this year as I launched into the unknown waters of installing a paywall; here’s why I did it. I’m pleased to say it’s going well, I’m really enjoying the work and it’s great that well over 2,000 people are on the mailing list.

If you’re new around here, there’s one free article a week with two for paid subscribers. The latter also get access to the data page, which carries xG tables and predictions for the Premier League, as well as a statistical preview on the forthcoming Liverpool match. We have discussion ‘chat’ threads during every game too.

So, to say thank you for getting behind my venture (and, yes, so I can pre-prepare the free newsletter for this week to have some time off around Christmas), here are a few of my favourite articles from 2024. If they had paywalls on originally, they have been removed until the new year so nothing below is off limits. When you like what you read, as you obviously will, please consider becoming a paid subscriber to support my work, if you’re not already.

The most monumental news of the year was Jürgen Klopp’s decision to leave Liverpool. I looked at the data behind the first 1,000 goals his Reds scored, then figured out which players were the top contributors in matches among the big six clubs once the Pep Guardiola era had begun. I also went looking for Liverpool’s starting XI from their victorious Champions League final of 2019; why didn’t they start more than that one game together?

With Liverpool in need of a replacement boss, I assessed Rúben Amorim’s credentials - whatever happened to him? - before running the rule over Arne Slot’s Feyenoord once he had been appointed as Klopp’s successor. There’s more analysis of the 2022/23 Eredivisie champions coming in the next week on here too.

There was also the question of a shot problem at the club which the new head coach needed to solve; so far, so good there. As well as dealing with that, Slot has found time to almost certainly guide Liverpool well past what the bookmakers predicted they could achieve before the campaign got underway. Whether he achieves that or not, the Dutchman has built on Klopp’s work to make the Reds the best club side in the world.

In other managerial analyses, I tore Gareth Southgate to shreds and suggested Manchester United were mad to give Erik ten Hag a new contract in the summer. They reached the right decision on that eventually, at least.

A valid criticism of the Red Devils’ former boss was that he didn’t get enough bang for United’s buck, wage-wise. The paywall was launched on here with an article which assessed the importance of wages versus transfer spend. FS GOUT or FS GIN?

As for the recipients of these millions of pounds, most of the key players at the club have had an article on them this year. I found that Mohamed Salah is still as good as he ever was on the underlying data, Virgil van Dijk is the king of home games and Trent Alexander-Arnold is having a weird season. Any word on their contracts, Richard?

With Liverpool favourites to win the Premier League, I established why 91 points will win the title this season, plus why it won’t be Chelsea lifting the trophy despite their recent hot form. All 20 teams in the division were assessed during the November international break too.

If the above content is not enough to pass the time this festive season, there are also ‘Stat of the Match’ reviews of various Reds games. I particularly enjoyed writing one on a Liverpool Women game I attended.

Hell, if you need even more to read, browse the archive. But even if you don’t look at anything else, thanks for getting this far. Thank you for every click, like, retweet, follow, share and piece of support. It means everything to me. Up the Reds.